Supplementary to Question No. 10 in the
Legislative Council on 7 August 1985
Mr.K.C. CHAN:- Sir, whilst appreciating the good service of the Customs
Service, I wish to know
(a)
whether random samples of imported beverages are taken
for fitness testing before they are sold and consumed by
the public;
(b) whether the 1,674 bottles of forfeited wine tally with
the total number of bottles imported and sold (that is,
are there still toxic wines floating around in Hong Kong
against which the public should not be off their guard?);
and finally,
(c)
from the customer protection point of view, who refunds
the public for toxic wines returned or forfeited?
-
Secretary for Trade and Industry:- Sir, it is not generally the practice of
the Customs and Excise Service to sample test all available alcoholic
beverages on the local market, but I can say that a number of other wines
have recently been tested including the German, Hungarian, and Rumanian wines.
As regards the question as to whether there are still unaccounted for bottles
of suspect Austrian wine, I can only say that the wine trade has been most
cooperative in their surrender of their stocks and I do not believe that
there should be large stocks unaccounted for. As regards this final question
of who is responsible for refunding the public, I would imagine that this is
a matter of law and anyone wishing to claim reimbursement of cost to him of
buying adulterated liquors will be at liberty to take to the law.